Outpatient Appointment Problem Solving Based on Simulated Annealing Algorithm with Memory

For the outpatient appointment decision problem in the medical institution, considering the patients’ preferences for appointment time and doctors, the prospect theory was used to quantify the subjective value of the patient to the time periods and the doctors, then the patients’value with the services received by different doctors in different time periods can be obtained. Furthermore， with the goal of maximizing the patients’value, the outpatient appointment model was built, and the simulated annealing algorithm with memory was used to solve the problem. By adjusting the number of patients, the model solution was obtained and compared with the solution obtained by the traditional method of“first come first served”to verify the efficiency and stability of the algorithm. The results show that the proposed model and solution method can get a satisfactory solution quickly, which can provide method support for the appointment decision of medical institutions and improve the satisfaction of patients.